Monday, December 12, 2011

Monday Motorsports News Continually Updated

It's a strange time of the year. Twitter is moving all kinds of motorsports information as is Facebook. It's been my suggestion that all true NASCAR fans get on Twitter as soon as possible. There is little doubt that this simple and free technology is changing the motorsports communications dynamic from top to bottom.

Here are some of the items in the news today:

The NASCAR on FOX production team is gathering for their two-day annual meeting in the Charlotte, NC area. Chris Myers and Larry McReynolds both asked NASCAR fans on Twitter to offer suggestions they would then bring up at the meeting. Nice touch.

It was a NASCAR vs. IndyCar showdown at the Indy Karting Classic on Sunday. The feature event streamed online by the 3 Wide Life bunch featured go-karts racing indoors on concrete at the Canseco Fieldhouse in Indy. Click here to read the story.

Sports Business Journal just released the new "50 Most Influential" people in sports. NASCAR Chairman Brian France is at #17, up slightly from last year. No other motorsports executive is on the list. Click here to see the entire list.

Still working hard to get details on the CBS airing of the 2012 Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. The date being mentioned is January 28, but no response yet from the production group. Click here for the event website. This is a big off-season meeting for all kinds of motorsports personalities centered on racing USAC midgets on dirt inside the Oklahoma Fairgrounds exhibition building.

While in the past, NASCAR relied on the network producing the race telecast for on-track replays, it appears that things are about to change. NASCAR and a company called Telestream have just made a deal for something new.

"The instant replay system that Telestream will be providing NASCAR next season will enable our officials to perform their jobs in an even more efficient and time-sensitive manner," said Robin Pemberton in a media release. "Having instant access to that many camera angles featuring such high quality video will be a terrific addition to our race weekends."

Telestream’s new Replay multichannel video player combines with its Pipeline HD video capture system to provide instant capture and display of 18 high definition 720p camera feeds. This allows race officials to instantly see detailed information to make rapid decisions about on-track aspects of the race.

One key point jumped out from the release. This news system gives NASCAR officials in Race Control the ability to view on-track incidents through synchronized multiple camera angle displays, including time-stamped track status metadata – in real time or on-demand. That should be a great assist with on-track incidents that in the past used the TV feed as the only source of content.

Bob Pockrass at Scene Daily reports that unofficially the Daytona 500 start time will be 1PM for next year. This has been an issue in the past. Pockrass also reminds fans this year the race is one week later than usual due to pressure from the NFL and the Super Bowl. Click here to read Bob's story.

We will be updating new links and stories all day long as this off-season Monday continues. Happy to have your comments on these topics of NASCAR TV/media questions.

Bob Pockrass retweeted this tweet from Sports Business Daily's Tripp Mickle: "Speed President Hunter Nickell has resigned. Fox will name a replacement for the motorsports netwk later this week. More in SBD Closing Bell"

@FoxNASCAR Production Team: Many of us here have a wish list for Santa Fox. Here is mine:

1) More wide shots. There's a lot going on during a race, and showing us only the leader or leaders doesn't tell the story nearly as well as wide shots. Early in your race, show us close-ups so we can get used to the different paint schemes/wraps that change from race to race.

Then later in the race, go to wider shots. You can use close-ups as punctuation, to refresh our memories of who it is, then cut back to the wider shot.

Don't be afraid to show us battles in the middle of the leaderboard. Please remember that nearly every driver has a fan base, and even if a driver is a field-filler, he might be our second- or third-favorite. Following on that thought...

2) Please give a close-up and thirty seconds to a minute of information about every car in the field. Don't worry about the start 'n' parks, they haven't earned it. As I just said, I think every one of us has a second- and third-favorite driver.

I realize it's not your duty, but for the general health of NASCAR, it would also help if those sponsors of the other cars saw their logos on your broadcast from time to time. A healthy NASCAR is good for all of us.

3) Towards the end of the race, find some way to tell us the pit stop status of the leaders. I think a small box in the upper right listing the leaders, what lap they last stopped, and what they took. Something like this:

14 Tony Stewart 4 tires, Lap 22099 Carl Edwards 2 tires, Lap 230

This will let us all put on our imaginary crew chief or team engineer hat and try to strategize when the next stop will be coming. Even the most casual fans understand the urgency of the situation and they can see how the handling goes away the further a team goes without changing all four tires.

Please, Santa Fox. WestCoastKenny has been a good boy. Please don't leave me a lump of coal in my stocking.

@CRZ: Is it too big a wish that the new Speed President be our very own John Daly?

So Hunter Nickel and Patti Wheeler are gone. Is this good? I guess. Maybe now we can get some decent programming. The ratings for this channel this time of year have got to be astronomically low, and it could be easily fixed if they would hire some people who have their heads on straight. Of course I say that knowing this is Fox sports, and the channel is run by David Hill, so I know the odds of this happening are lower than the odds of Phil Parson's team actually running past lap 20 in a race.

"It's been my suggestion that all true NASCAR fans get on Twitter as soon as possible."Since 2007 my son and I have not missed watching a race, granted sometimes I had to DVR it. I have no desire to Twitter. I consider myself a lover of technology, but no desire to Twitter. I also consider my son and I true fans of NASCAR and nobody is going to convince me I'm not.I've been a NY Giants fan for years...huge fan...but, I have no desire to be on Twitter and following info about the Giants. I still think I'm a true fan.

Two of the common misconceptions about Twitter is that you have to have an account to read tweets and that you have to give up your privacy to use Twitter.

You don't need to have an account, but it's much easier to gather the tweets if you do. But if you simply want to read tweets from a person or program, just type Twitter.com/And-The-Twitter-Name/ and you can read it. The advantage to having an account is you can choose who to follow and their tweets are driven to your account. You can choose to read as many or as few as you choose. Most days I never check my Twitter feed.

One of the major advantages of Twitter is you get news a lot faster. For example, when it's raining close to the track, sometimes the announcers won't tell you. I had one tell me that he won't mention it because his network knows people will switch away even before it happens.

If you know rain is coming, then some odd pit strategies might all of a sudden make sense.

Like J.D., I invite you to go to Twitter.com during a race and type in the hashtag #NASCAR and see what the search brings you. A lot of it will be junk, but some things will be useful, and you might find you like it.

You are welcome to follow me, but I don't write much. But you can go to my account (or anyone else's) and see who we follow. You'll find drivers, announcers, WAGs, and beat writers.

I have twitter. To read what someone is twitting you have to follow them. When you get on twitter you don't all of a sudden have all these millions of tweets to read. You pick who you follow. I follow a few football players, a few Nascar drivers and a couple misc. people.I don't tweet back to anyone I follow much. I use twitter more like news headlines.If you haven't tried twitter you could find out a lot about Nascar by just following one person - John Daly. His twitter account is @TheDalyPlanet. What JD does is he gets lots of tweets from people all over and if he gets one he thinks may interest his followers he retweets it.I follow JD and his tweets keep me up to date about what is going on. Some of his tweets have links you can click on to learn more.He does a super job picking the news for me.

I don't follow TWITTER nor do I tweet.Others say that NASCAR is not getting younger people to watch the televised races cuz they are so into online opportunites,and some on here are proposing that I and others like me tweet instead of watching the televised racing.I'll continue to read JAYSKI and TDP,but NOT interested in wasting my time on the internet following some persons tweets.I've dropped out of some forums cuz it was just to much b.s. to keep up with.

My wish is for the fans to have more of a presence in the coverage of races. Get into the stands and ask the fans what they think. Get out into the campgrounds, and not just the high-brow infield. Cover the insane parties that go on. Show us the fun! NASCAR is more than a sport, it's a LIFESTYLE. Sadly, we'll never get more than goobers holding signs during Trackside because the suits are afraid. Afraid of what the fans will say on camera, how they look, how they speak, etc. They sure thank us a lot during the year end banquet, but they work awfully hard at keeping fans at arms length the rest of the year. Anyone who thinks Twitter is changing that is fooling themselves.